Mixing with only ONE single instrumental track + Separate tracks for vocals?

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DavidStarz

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Hey there guys. First time poster here. I'm fairly new to mixing and have been reading a LOT as far EQs and all the tools for mixing. My goal is to be able to mix all of my music by myself, but I have a problem...I ALWAYS get the instrumentals for my songs in a single .wav file. I don't steal my beats or anything. When I get leases on them or have friends send them to me, they only send the single .wav file for the instrumental and can't send them diffused. What is the best way to have my vocals sit well in the mix when I only get a single instrumental track? EQ the instrumental in a specific way? Double it and slightly pan them left & right? When I get the instrumentals, they're already mixed down well (w/o my vocals on them at all). I have an example to show the best I was able to do recently as far as mixing for one of my songs on these instrumentals. It's not great, but please remember I'm new at mixing so any advice would be AMAZING. Please keep it in simple terms as well since I'm still learning :/ Thank you so much in advance!
 

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when i have to mix with one WAV. file i usually eq the beat (WAV. file) . First i cut out the low end with the eq. depending how muddy the lows are i will cut up to 40-50 hz and this will clean up some of the bass (because most of the time when people send you the beat as one WAV. track they have added some compression to the master channel and that causes the lows to become real present).. Next i will cut a little about 1-2db out of the beat where i put my vocals . EX:( i usually boost my vocals around the 5khz and or 8-10khz with a eq. So say i'm going to boost my vocals about 3db at 5khz then i will cut that same part out of the beat at 5khz about 2db. this makes room for the vocals to sit). That is how i manage to make my vocals sit some what good..

If your leasing beats try to get them tracked out if you can , but i know some times people want 90$ a lease tracked out so not everybody wants to do that just for a mix tape track. If you can't get the beat tracked out then get it in WAV. Format and ask the person to remove every thing off the master channel, because as i said before most people add compression, eq, limiter and some stereo imaging to the master channel and that will cause issues in the future when you go to master your track.. Just some advice....

And here is a remix track i did for some artists .. It was a low quality mp3 beat (way too cold /theraflu) . I had to cut the lows out of this track up to 50hz because the Bass was so heavy. I then boosted the vocals for the female at 9khz and then the two guys i boosted theres at 5khz .. Therefore, i put a 2db dip in the beat at 9khz and a 2db dip at 5khz .... Hope this helps a little.. (watch at 720 so you can hear better)

 
Yeah... forget the specific khz references... b/c every voice is different.

The only thing you can really do is use an EQ to cut away at the frequencies the voice is competiting with the most. Also, maybe a good bus compressor and lightly compress to try to gel them to gether a little. I can't think of much more you can do.

Hard panning L and R doesn't really do anything... b/c it gives you they exact same sound.. right down the middle. The pans cancel each other out. I did learn a trick I'll share w/ you. If you really want an element of a beat to sound like it's coming from both speakers... hard pan them like you said, but nudge one track a few milliseconds forward or backwards (I usually give one track a smaller nudge forward, and the other a smaller nudge backwards). This will actually trick your ears into believing that the sounds are coming from both speakers, and not down the middle. (Try it... it's pretty cool). I'm pretty sure that's what the pros do to get certain sounding popping out at you.

I don't really think this will help much in your case, b/c I would think it would only work best w/ certain elements of the beat, not the whole damn thing. But hey... it's worth a shot.
 
The frequencies i stated were the ones i used.. but as CPhoenix said, the frequencies are different for all people...
 
Thanks guys for the advice. I'll definitely look into it. Thanks a lot! :)
 
This is good info, im in the same position this gives me something to look into
 
I had the same problem this year . I want to know if Its better to send each track of the instrumental or wav file.I wanted to stop sending individual tracks because niggas kill my sound I sound so different after they master the song and I hate that . So its better with individual instrumental tracks or wav file only or its them same in the end ?
 
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